Islam and Liberalism

The illiberal beliefs exhibited in recent weeks by a large segment of the Muslim population confirms, in many ways, the incompatibility of liberalism with conservative Muslim thought. It is not the fact that these individuals are Muslim, but that the culture and society they embrace have rejected the separation of church and state and the ability of individuals to freely discuss ideas that may be offensive to religious sentiment. However, systemically, it also shows that one of the greatest threats to the spread of liberal democracy is not and was not the authoritarian regimes that have existed in the Arab world, but the Islamist-backed popular movements in places such as Egypt and Palestine. It is the ideas that many Islamists believe in that in fact make it difficult for liberal democracy to be established in the Middle East today and are now moving into Europe’s increasing radicalized immigrant community.

To begin, the cartoons in questions were not as offensive as the Muslim clerics who journeyed to Egypt claimed or portrayed them to be. In fact, these clerics purposefully displayed caricatures that were never published by any Danish newspapers and were not associated with any employees of reputable or well-circulated publications. Additionally, their complaints came long after the cartoons in question were published in September of last year. Instead, the images that were printed were done so in order to test the limits of the self-censorship that has been growing over the past five years in Europe, particularly after the March 11th attacks in Madrid, July 7th attacks in London, and the violent unrest in both the Netherlands and France. The assassination of the well-known director Theo van Gogh and assassination attempts against Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali undoubtedly also contributed to silencing many critics and forced publications to limit the range of what they were willing to print. The main image in question – that of Muhammad with a bomb as a turban – is legitimately satirical. It appears to argue that suicide bombers have created an image of Muhammad and Islam that is often hard to distinguish from the violence that they have come to propagate with the intent of defending their interpretation of Islam.

This Islam of suicide bombers is the radical Islam that appears to be growing in popularity not only in the Arab world and South-central Asia, but also in Europe. Those who believe in this radical Islamic philosophy refuse to adopt the liberal values that have come to define our Western society and are often confused by many for the roots of democracy. As Fareed Zakaria argues in The Future of Freedom, constitutional liberalism – “the rule of law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property” – does not require democracy for its maintenance. Nor, though, does democracy require constitutional liberalism. One can have a democratic state with a government that repeatedly violates the rights of minorities, one that restricts the ideas people are allowed to discuss, and that does not adhere to the law.

It is liberalism – freedom of speech, the rule of secular law, and, most importantly, freedom of religion, which is marked by the separation of church and state – that causes many Islamists today to object. From this point of view the prophet cannot be drawn or satirically portrayed. Any public discussion must take into account the Koran and, hence, cannot violate its ban on images of the prophet. Furthermore, non-believers and people of the book can be tolerated, but they cannot be allowed to fully express themselves if it violates their interpretation of the Koran. Islamists that follow this logic cannot support the protection of freedom of speech in its entirety – the state must defend religion against blasphemous ideas. This is a rejection of the Enlightenment idea of separate spheres for church and state, of the public and the private. The Koran, as they interpret it, offers the one and only way for people to live, hence it should and must be an integral part of the political process, from which it cannot be separated. Because western liberalism does this it must be rejected and replaced by an Islamic regime that respects the will of god and allows for what Sayyid Qutb called “His rule on earth.” Qutb himself, argues Paul Berman in Terror and Liberalism, did not encourage violent aggression against non-believers and those who supported liberalism in the non-Muslim world. However, one can see the fine line that modern Islamists walk, particularly in Europe, in their attempt to defeat liberalism and bring god’s rule back to earth.

It is within this context that the Danish cartoons and the ongoing protests in the Middle East and South-central Asia must be placed. Countries such as Iran, Pakistan, and Syria are not free. They do not allow spontaneously organized protests. Instead, the Syrians, for instance, are trying to placate the increasingly popular Islamists and boost their own support by allowing violent protests to take aim at European embassies. They, like other governments in Muslim countries, want to distract their citizens from their illegitimacy and provide them with an outlet for the anger and sense of powerlessness that their authoritarian rules have built up. In Lebanon, on the other hand, the Syrians have attempted to instigate unrest – only a year after they allegedly assassinated the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and were, in response, ejected from the country – to better their own position and possibly lay the foundations for a civil war. To the east, the Iranians are also trying to manipulate the anger on the part of much of the Muslim world in an attempt to garner support for their acquisition of nuclear technology.

This support, though, is not rooted only in an attempt to further their own strategic positions, but placate the Islamists, who have a true base of support behind them. It is this Islamist base that means simply introducing democracy into the region – without any deeply rooted liberal principles – would simply lead to the propagation of anti-Western and illiberal policies. These are the policies the Bush administration and others imagined would disappear if Arab countries actually democratized. However, the adoption of democracy by an illiberal populace would probably lead to the growth of illiberal, anti-Semitic, and anti-Western policies far more offensive to the West than those supported by most non-democratic Muslim governments today, excluding Iran.

In Europe individuals have a right to support the separation of religion and state and freedom of speech. The publication of these caricatures was wholly legitimate because it was not meant to insult or attack Muslims, but show the damage many Islamists and all suicide bombers do to the image of Islam in the West. It was an attempt to overcome the chilling impact that radical Muslims have had on much of Europe in recent years. However, it is clear from the vocal and violent response of some of the Muslim community across the world could serve to silence critics of Islamism and culturally conservative Muslim immigrants. This should not be allowed. Instead, all who support the developments of the Enlightenment – the separation of church and state – should stand with the Danes and those publications that have reprinted the cartoons from nearly five months ago. As Hirsi Ali pointed out in an interview with Der Spiegel, “Not a day passes, in Europe and elsewhere, when radical imams aren’t preaching hatred in their mosques.” If they are allowed this right, what is wrong with a related, satirical cartoon?

Postscript: I realize that this article will be outside of the accepted norms here, which is why I have posted it. Some years ago I found the radical leftist view as the correct one. There is nothing wrong with that view; however, one should also take other’s ideology into consideration. The “enemy” of my “enemy” is not always my friend. Liberal does not always mean “Democracy” or an economic conservative – remember, the Liberal Democrats are the party the furthest to the left of the main three parties in Britain. Just stop and think…

Posted by Sean
A few more months struck here in the USA before I emigrate to Switzerland.